that the remaining 10 per cent were no better than they should be. This was "too bad" for even Sir Joshua; and we had an indignant denial of the fact and protest against the systematic manner in which attempts to disparage the convict system in this country had for years been carried on. In regard to the 90 per cent, it was all found to be a mistake, and that from 20 to 25 per cent was about the mark. It appears that out of 9180 license-holders discharged between 1853 and March 1861, only 30 forfeited their licenses in the year 1860, and only 54 were again sentenced to penal servitude. In the seven years and six months between October 1853 and December 1860, 9 per cent only of the whole number have forfeited their licenses, and 11.3 per cent have been again sentenced to penal servitude; of these, two-thirds of the number have been convicted of the lighter crimes. It also appears that of 764 females licensed during the same period, only 4 had their licenses revoked in 1860, and 8 were subjected to fresh convictions, the percentage during the whole period of seven and a half years being only 8 in each case.

Another remarkable feature is, that whereas a few years ago we annually got rid of some 3000 to 4000 of our worst criminals by deportation to a distant colony, yet now that we release the great majority at home, and have to submit to the relapse into crime of say 25 per cent of them, the number sentenced to penal servitude and transportation has been reduced from an average of 3698 males, in the five years from 1840 to 1844, to an average of about 2300 in the years from 1856 to 1860; and this when crime all over the country has diminished, and the popu lation has increased.

To any one who recollects the fearful anticipations which prevailed when the abolition of transportation, as the highest of our secondary pun. ishments, was first talked of, these results will appear almost fabulous; indeed, it would be difficult to assign causes for so favourable a result under the great difficulties which have been experienced.

Giving due weight to the great difference in the conditions, and the far greater difficulties which have been encountered in working the system in England, we may confidently affirm that the results have been fully equal to any that have been secured in Ireland.

This is the system of discipline which has replaced the hulks, of which it is stated, in a report for 1852, that, "speaking humanly, the demoralisation of every individual sentenced to transportation was certain. No matter what might have been his previous character, what the amount of his contrition, or what the sincerity of his efforts and resolutions to retrace his steps, he was placed within the influence of a moral pestilence, from which, like death itself, there was no escape." This is the state of moral and mental training which has replaced the crime-breeding and soul-staining contamination so feelingly described by the convict Magwitch in Mr. Dickens's latest and most perfect work, Great Expectations. Looking at our English system and its results, I think we have reason to be proud of it, and that we may fairly say, "They do not manage these things better in-Ireland!"

London Poems.

VII. THE RIVER.

THE many golden eyes of night
Grow wide to gaze upon the light
Of the unrisen dawn,

And from the sleeping clouds afar
The twilight of the morning star
Is delicately drawn-

The constellations one by one
Curtain their jewels from the sun.

I stand upon the Bridge alone.
Below my feet, with sullen moan,
I see the River roam

Blackly along the speckled shade,
Toward the sunrise, dark with trade

And dank with harbour loam;
It flows from shady places where
Laburnums lave their golden hair.

And looking down upon its face,
I fashion fancies of the place

From whence it singing flows,
Till underneath its blackened breast
I see a Naiad in her nest

Where the wild lily blows,

With glimpses of a mossy wood
Where hyacinths and harebells brood;

The country in its harvest trance,
The slanted sheaves, where gleaners dance,
Where haymakers carouse;

And, dreaming sweetly thus at will,
I hear the birds, and feel the still
Eye-music of green boughs.
Such pictures, different in degree,
The mighty River makes for me.

Towards the sea the River rolls,
With gloomy wealth of human souls,
And dreams of harvest-home :
Beyond those clouds, the ocean's lips
Are shady with returning ships,

And white with flying foam;

To kiss those lips the River thrills,
With rumours from the summer hills.

Stirring and moaning while it sleeps,
In echoing dreams the City keeps
Trade's busy restless roar-
Like a great sea whose sunless waves
Retain the thunder in their caves

When the loud storm is o'er.

But, through its quiet breast, the River Flows with a throbbing heart for ever.

Save when, within a distant street,
I hear the pulse of labour beat,
The hour is still as when

The tameless thunder fierce and warm,
Before the lightning-lance of storm,
Crouches, then springs again.

But still the River traileth tides
Foul with the sin of suicides.

O City, dreaming of your wealth!
O River, creeping on in stealth!

While all seems still as death,
Still as those dirges which awake
The spirit of the storm, and shake
The leaves without a breath!
I stand between ye both, a part
Of the black City's restless heart.

Roof'd by the fading stars, I stand,
With night and day on either hand:
All human joy and grief

Are husht around me at this hour;
The silence flutters like a flower,

And opens leaf by leaf;

A little sunny hand glides down

To touch the forehead of the town.

O River, rich in glimpses sweet

Of sunny slopes where lambkins bleat,
Of many a quiet glade

Where all is coolness, while above
The sunshine faints on clouds that move
Slowly, and cast no shade!

O River dark, whose waters croon
O'er floating dresses in the moon!